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Writing Down the Wine

There was something surreal about going so immediately from presenting/discussing six 2006 Oregon Pinot noirs as examples of polyphenolics at the Oregon Wine Industry Symposium, to attending the 4th Professional Wine Writers Symposium at Meadowood (in Napa Valley).

Consider: here I am one moment telling career winemakers what I make of the phenolic character of their Oregon Pinot noir wines (like I know), and the next moment (ok, it was really two days later, but it seemed like the next moment), sitting in the audience at one of Napa Valley’s most prestigious (and therefore expensive) wine venues (Meadowood), while the likes of Lettie Teague (wine editor for http://www.foodandwine.com/ magazine and author of the recent best-seller “Educating Peter”), David Rosengarten (author of numerous cookbooks, former Food Network TV star, and writer of the Rosengarten Report newsletter--and James Beard Journalism Award-winner), Bill Le Blonde (the food & wine editor at Chronicle Books), Karen MacNeil (author of “The Wine Bible” and head of the Wine Education curriculum at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley), Linda Murphy (former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper’s Wine Section—the only stand-alone wine section in a daily newspaper in the country—for which, I may add, I have written an article), and Alder Yarrow (the best-known wine blogger and author of the most widely read wine blog, called Vinography) tell us about the ins and outs of wine writing, wine review writing, and all the myriad considerations of publishing, ethics, and making a living as a freelance wine writer.

Quite a transition.

The Professional Wine Writers Symposium at Meadowood is a unique event. It is, to my knowledge, the only happening of its kind in this country that is focused on the particular issues facing the niche career of writers who aspire to making a living writing about wine (as opposed to writers who don’t have to make a living writing about wine—some of whom were in attendance—either because of an independent income, or an understanding spouse, the latter of which has been important to me).

This is the fourth year of the Symposium, and my second year in attendance. It was a valuable experience, both from the standpoint of things learned (Jack Hart’s writing seminars were a much-needed tutorial) and people met (Lettie Teague actually asked me for my business card).

It was also a whirlwind of wine, food, wine, and more wine . . . not to mention an interesting re-exposure to the Mecca of American wine . . . of which more soon.

(I apologize for the poor quality of the photos. I used my iPhone, which so far has stood me in good stead, but I discovered that fingerprints on the lens don;t improve the quality of the images! Captions: Top photo, l. to r.: Bill Le Blanc, David Rosengarten, Lettie Teague; Bottom photo: David Rosengarten, Karen MacNeil, Brett Anderson of the Robb Report).

Poly want a . . . phenol? Part Two

So there I was (see my last post for the full context of this post), up on the dais, famous winemakers to the left of me, PhD chemists to the right of me, and the floor was mine . . . all mine . . . did I succeed—or fail?

Mostly, I think I failed . . . at least in the key reason for my being on this technical tasting panel.

I began my portion of the panel by confirming the suspicions of the audience: “A lot of you are wondering why there’s a wine writer sitting on the technical tasting panel . . .” I could see the confirming nods of some audience members, their eyebrows raised in query, pointed in my direction.

“I’m here because what I do is translate the phenolic character of Oregon wines into terms the consumer can understand.” That was my story, and I was sticking to it. Luckily, it was true.

Now, I’ll admit that “translating phenolic character” is not the normal way that I think about my job, but when you get down to it, it wasn’t a bad description. I taste and review Northwest wines for the general public. I tell them what my impressions are of the myriad smells, tastes, and experiential—what is rightly known as the “organoleptic” characteristics of a wine—are to my palate. This is to a good degree the province of phenolics.

My role in the technical tasting panel, was to bridge the gap between the winemaking technique/technology and the chemical/scientific theory, with the actual results the consumer experiences in the glass. To validate that end, I had chosen 6 Oregon Pinot noir wines, bought at normal commercial outlets, to present to the assembled Northwest wine industry experts as examples of how Oregon Pinot noirs from he 2006 vintage illustrated different expressions of polyphenolic character (if you are dubious about polyphenolics, please see my previous post).

But here was the unfortunate rub: while I made it clear that the wines I had chosen were to be presented blind to the assembled 250-or-so winemakers, I apparently did not make it clear that their identities would NOT be revealed (under pain of death). This was a critical point.

The object of my presentation of these wines was to encourage a full and complete discussion by the assembled winemaking audience without fear of insulting what turned out to be a friend’s wine (or worse, their own wine.) We wanted a vigorous discussion, and to get it we were guaranteeing the anonymity of the wines I was presenting. Only I knew the identities of the wines, and that identity would not be revealed.

But I didn’t make that clear.

After what seemed like a lukewarm discussion—with me covering up the lack of discourse with my own diarrhea-of-the-mouth ramblings—the panel concluded and we all began to disassemble.

“So what are the wines?” shouted one winemaker from the audience.

“I’m not telling!” I replied.

Another winemaker . . . an important one . . . came up to me and told me that if he had understood that the wines would not be identified he would have said much more (especially about how wine #2 was made with enzymes and dry ice . . .), and there would have been much more discussion.

Ooops. That was the goal: more discussion.

I had blown it.

OK, so it wasn’t a disaster. There was reasonable interchange, the wines were varied, the rest of the panel had cogent things to say . . . but in the end the principal goal of my participation on the panel had not been achieved.

Bummer.

Perhaps I’ll have a chance to redeem myself at some future Oregon Wine Industry Symposium.